Quickening
by Libek
Summary: Tyki Mikk's first days as a member of the Noah family, and an idea of what his "aspect" of Noah might mean. A trifle dark, obviously.


It was summer. They were boys, hovering on the cusp of adulthood, talking excitedly about the mystery of the female. What lies beneath her sculpted lace? Do you know she has an extra rib? Do you watch the carriages sometimes, just to catch a glimpse of bare ankle beneath those frothy skirts they wear?

Shaved ice was melting on his fingers, the sticky-sweet thick in his mouth. Tyki remembered feeling oddly apprehensive as his turn came round, but not even for a moment anticipating that when he opened his mouth to speak

nothing would come out.

He had no words, no giddy teenaged expectations to share. He had spent just as much time as any of them gawking at pretty ladies and admiring their curves, but nothing stuck out for him. No one moment had seemed any more interesting than any other.

And it went deeper than that, this whatever-it-was; he had grown up destitute, starving on dirty streets, but no one moment had been any more painful. No one moment had been any happier -- any sadder -- any more or less miserable. His life was a long gray line, from his earliest memories to his eventual death.

Because he had felt no pleasure, and without pleasure, there can be no pain.

"Poor Tyki," one of the other boys said with a laugh, breaking the silence. "He's never really _lived_. We should take him down to the southside, that's where the prettiest ladies gather."

And with that, the conversation moved on, leaving him behind.

They moved on, leaving him behind. They became adults, they became men, they scrounged and saved to impress the ladies of their choice, and he was left standing on the sidelines, wondering why none of it meant anything to him.

Then, the stigmata appeared.

How old had he been at the time? It was hard to say, when all the years of your life bled together like a water color painting. Twenty-four, perhaps, or twenty-six.

He hadn't been afraid.

His forehead had burst, aching and bleeding and horrifying, like nothing he had ever felt before in his life -- but he hadn't been afraid. Tyki remembered hiding the pain from his employer, hiding the blood with a dark headcloth that he washed out every night, and he remembered pausing once to realize that there was a good pint of blood in his washbin, but even in that moment he had felt nothing but impatience.

Everyone knew what _stigmata_ meant, even poor little street urchins with no education, but Tyki had never even considered going to a priest. What was the point of talking to the doorman, when the boss wanted to see you personally?

So when the Earl finally came to see him, Tyki had simply lit a cigarette and said, "Took you long enough."

He was startled, not by the Earl's raised eyebrows or dimming smile, but by the sound of a giggle and the dark girl who stepped out from behind him.

"Oh," she'd said, "I like this one. Can we keep him?"

Her name, as it turned out, was Rhode.

*

They were, and were not, exactly like any family in the world. The Earl was, and was not, what he imagined a doting father would have been; Rhode was, and was not, just like the younger sister he had never had. They loved him, and they didn't.

But if he had expected joining their family to automatically bring him closer to the rest of the world, if he had expected it to imbue him with all the pleasure he had been missing and give his life meaning, Tyki would have been sorely disappointed.

"Tyki-pet," Rhode said one day, slinging her arms around his neck unexpectedly and sinking into his skin for half a second before he remembered to let her touch him. She had thrown such a tantrum, the one time she had slid right through him to the floor beneath. "Take me shopping. Early-pearly doesn't want to go, and I need new things for spring."

"I don't want to take you shopping," Tyki replied shortly, and felt her small body stiffen against him, her pointed chin settle petulantly onto his shoulder.

She didn't say a word, didn't pout at him or cry, but for the first time in his life he felt -- something. For the first time in his life he wished he had chosen his words more carefully. He had made grown women cry, but never once had he ever felt so horribly guilty.

"Forget it," he said. "It's fine. I'll take you."

The words made her whole face light up, and she squeezed him tightly, but it wasn't until she had let him go, dancing back with a grin, that he realized he was sharing her smile.

What was this feeling? What _was_ she, that she could do this to him? Was this just what it meant to be part of her family? His closest friends were people he had left behind without a second thought and would never miss, but this girl he barely knew -- making her smile had made _him_ smile.

He hadn't changed enormously, he didn't think. The mission of the Noah family hadn't inspired him especially. And yet, the same world that had seemed so small and dark and hollow before was brighter now.

"Well, of course it is," Rhode told him impatiently as they left another expensive boutique. "I never used to dream, either. Don't you know who you are, Tyki?"

The idea of never dreaming was slightly startling, and he took a moment to answer her. "I'm -- a part of the Noah family," he said slowly. "And we're going to end the world, I thought." What did his empty existence have to do with that?

She tilted her head back and smiled. "Those women across the street," she said. "They're beautiful, aren't they? Voluptuous? Wouldn't you love to take one home and splay her legs and fuck her into your bed?"

Tyki stumbled, hard, and turned to stare hard at her. Had he misjudged her age? Was she older than the twelve or thirteen he'd thought? The words were too grown-up, too crass for her.

"I'm not as young as I look," she said without looking back at him, and he wondered if she had heard him stumble. "Just look at those women, and tell me what you see."

"Let's just keep moving."

He didn't want to look, Tyki realized. He was -- afraid of those women, as he hadn't been afraid of God or the Devil. He was afraid he would follow her imperiously pointing finger and see nothing worth looking at.

Rhode stopped walking, and he was forced to stop with her. To his surprise, she was smiling again, wide and broad and positively giddy -- more genuinely excited, he couldn't help thinking, than she had been when he'd agreed to come with her.

"Look at them," she commanded again. "I think you'll like what you see."

Reluctantly, but because he knew she wouldn't move until he did, Tyki looked.

He took three of them to bed with him that night, and did his best not to notice the nakedly envious look on Rhode's face as he passed her in the hall on the way to his own room in the Earl's manor.

*

Nothing in his life had ever touched him, until he had lost the ability to casually touch anything in it. He was a Noah, and a monster, before he was man enough to see the wonder in a woman's bared wrist or flashing ankle. As the memory of Noah's pleasure, Rhode had explained to him, of course he'd taken no pleasure in his own life until he had been reborn with ashen skin and scars on his forehead.

"Is Tyki-pet feeling more at home now?" the Earl asked that night from his end of the dinner table, cheerful behind the day's paper.

"Very much so," Rhode assured him, beaming at Tyki. "Poor thing didn't understand why the wine had no taste~. He does now."

The Earl nodded, as though he approved. "Perhaps it's time he left home, then, and saw a bit more of the world. He should enjoy it, before it ends."

His sheets were still wet, and his mouth full of newly-succulent meat, but at that Tyki paused, glancing up. The newspaper hid the Earl's face from view.

It was a strange feeling, to know that he had never really lived until he had all but stopped being human -- but Tyki had been enjoying the remarkable transformation. He had been enjoying... enjoying things. Looking at beautiful women and seeing their sensuality, living in the world instead of merely passing through it numbly.

But they were still going to destroy that world, and in that moment -- just for an instant -- he really hadn't wanted to do it.


End file.
